Owners: Erin & Jonathan Fredi

Our Story

Part 1: Humble Beginnings

In the summer of 2019 we came across an incredible property just east of Denton in a beautiful small town of Aubrey, known for it's small town feel and great school district. After visiting several properties throughout the DFW metroplex, we decided this was where we wanted to build a home for our growing family. We hope to one day be able to harvest our bee honey, make candles from the beeswax, sell our angora goats' locks, and offer land clearing/tree pruning services.

The land took a lot of vision as it was completely undeveloped and covered in everything thorny from green briars and bull nettles to honey locust trees with thorns up to 10 inches in length.  No roadway access, no driveway, no utilities. But the dream of building a home in a setting where we could raise our children amongst animals and the land to teach an appreciation and respect for the beauty around us was worth the work we knew it would take.

With our firstborn six months old at the time, Evelyn, we began the clearing process while living out of our Dallas home. For the first year, we would pack up daily after the workday with Evelyn in tow to make the hour drive north to work until we were out of daylight. We would then head home and crash all to wake up the next day to repeat. Within that first year we received and executed all of the permits and work necessary to build our driveway, install our 2,000 lf water line, excavate our pond, and build the barn and house pad. 

Part II: Restoring the land

Once we cleaned up the land, I (landscape architect by trade) put down dozens of pounds of native and adaptive species of wildflowers and grasses after tilling the soil. My husband, Jonathan Fredi, has an interest in beekeeping and so we invested in 6 hives for the property. The mixtures of wildflowers we selected would help provide a food resource to the bees throughout the various seasons. We also installed over 300 trees throughout the property. These included a mix of evergreen trees to increase privacy, flowering trees to provide food to the bees, and deciduous trees for shade, beauty, and fall color.  We were fortunate enough to have a group of family and friends come out to help with the planting for the small price of lunch from Raising Canes. Water has been a struggle, but we finally installed a drip system around the property to save us the numerous hours of hand watering. We've lost a few dozen, but are pleased with the survivors and enjoy watching them grow each season.

Part III: Building the farm family

The very first animals to (outside of our Catahoula rescue pup, Liesl) be introduced to Fredi Farms, were the fish to stock the pond.  I always wanted a windmill, so for my birthday that first year, Jonathan surprised me by building one with an aeration system to oxengate the water for the fish. For my following birthday,  I wanted a fountain, "to help with the fish, too". Then came Jonathan's bees, followed by our Angora goats, Jacob sheep (on Jonathan's wish list), and llama mama Louisa. Unfortunately, we experienced our first hard loss on the farm during the birth of Louisa's first cria's birth in July of 2022. Neither Louisa or her baby made it. We had been warned that life on a farm comes with a lot of joy, but also with a lot of loss and pain. We definitely felt the pain of this loss. Mama and baby were buried in a wildflower field together on the farm. We have been fortunate to be surrounded by wonderful, compassionate neighbors and one of these neighbors dug the hole for us. As it so happened, this occurred on Jonathan's birthday. True to his nature, with his respect and love for animals, burying them took precedence over our birthday plans. He buried mama and baby while I took the girls to Fuzzys to keep them occupied. As Louisa was the farm protector, we had to quickly bring another llama on board: Captain von Trapp - Captain for short. Noticing a theme yet? I've been obsessed with the Sound of Music since I first watched the musical with my grandmother when I was a little girl. Following the four legged animals, came the birds. Birds have been our biggest struggle due to predators in the area so we have lost more than we care to think about. We currently have a new wave of teenagers that have almost reached adulthood along with two new roosters, 4 Muskogee ducks, 4 runner ducks, 5 guineas, and a pair of peacocks.  Jonathan and I have had a handshake deal that no more birds are allowed until we are in the barn.  I have a tendancy to roam Atwoods just to "look" at their available chicks. More on that story in Part IV.

Part IV:  The "House"

When we began this journey in 2019, we anticipated putting up a barn with an apartment to live in while we built the dream house on the pad we built infront of the pond. However, life set it and threw in any and every setback you can imagine. Our original budget was eaten up during the first phase due to the material price hikes during Covid. A few months has turned into a few years of still not having a permanent home on the property. The barn that was intended to be a barn with a small apartment has now turned into what will be our house. The traditional house may still come sometime in the future, but only time will tell.

For the first year, as mentioned previously, we spent our time on the land clearing and prepping it for us and our animals. For the second year, we bought a 26ft travel trailer to live out on the land on the weekends while we rented out our house on Airbnb. During this time we welcomed our second baby girl, Alessandra. This meant we were packing up and cleaning the house in preparation for guests at the end of every week to move back out to the property for the weekend. As you can imagine, this got old really fast, especially with a newborn. We decided to move into the trailer full time in the summer of 2022 to eliminate the back and forth effort. Evelyn started at her daycare and Alessandra stayed home. The trailer was meant to be short-term, but here we are another year later, still chipping away at the progress of building. Things are nice and cozy around here. As we are expecting Fredi baby number 3's arrival in early 2024, we are hoping our trailer life comes to end prior to his/her birth. 

We have had our share of struggles, disappointments, heartache, and frustrations, but we have also experienced incredible joys, gifts of new life, and great milestones of progress. We know we are capable now of way more than we initially considered attempting to tackle when this all began. We have felt the love and support of our family, friends, and new neighbors during this entire venture going back as far as our wedding where friends and family contributed donations as wedding gifts to the dream of this farm and the animals it would house. Through it all, our experiences have made this Fredi family's bond grow stronger and deeper than we ever could have imagined. We cannot wait to see what the future has instore for us as we continue to learn & grow with each other every day out here at Fredi Farms.